


our hearts, like doors

by anddirtyrain



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-01-31 10:47:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12680346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anddirtyrain/pseuds/anddirtyrain
Summary: A compilation of short fics and one shots about Clarke&Lexa, together and apart.





	1. bucket list

**Author's Note:**

> These fics range in rating and whether they're set in the100 universe or AUs, so a short description will be available on the notes each chapter. Without further ado, enjoy!
> 
> Canon divergent, rated PG.  
> Lexa finds a strange list Clarke has written.

Lexa finds it by accident.

She’s walking through her chambers, picking up the stray clothes and towels that Clarke -in her forced rest- has thrown to the ground. Their room has never been untidier, but she bears it for her. Clarke’s been in bed for the better part of a week, recovering from an arrow wound to her shoulder after the last skirmish with the ice clan, and Lexa’s been sending the maids away to care for Clarke herself.

It’s early in the afternoon, and Clarke’s sleeping after her lunch. Lexa’s cleaning the room, and she can’t help it when her eyes fall on the piece of paper on the table beside her bed.

It’s simple, really.

 

_1-Marry Lexa._

_2-Babies._

_3-Travel far._

_4-See the ocean. (Complements 3.)_

_5-Learn to swim._

_6-See my kids grow up._

 

She doesn’t know what the list means, even if after a few of Clarke’s lessons she became adept at reading gonasleng, but even then she gets the feeling that she shouldn’t have seen it.

She reads the first item in the list again. ‘Marry Lexa’. Simple words but she knows what it entails. Marriage for the sky kru…a binding ceremony for her. Swearing their life to one another, a blood oath to be broken by death only. 

She’d thought about it. She wants it all with Clarke.

They’d attended Lincoln and Octavia’s ceremony. They’d danced and drank and they’d both worn dresses that ended up on the floor of her chambers later in the evening. And Clarke had asked. Lexa had explained. 

She’d also told her how it was unheard of for a Commander to have one.

Clarke hadn’t asked again.

Lexa had wanted her to, hadn’t meant for the words to come out the way they did, but Titu’s voice still resonated in her ears some times, even after he was long since dead. 

She’d want a ceremony with Clarke. Would Clarke want it too? Is that what the list means?

She looks at the other words. ‘Babies’. Young’uns. Clarke…wants to raise a family with her. ‘To travel far. See the ocean.’ Those all sound like things she could do. Or wants to. But Lexa dares not hope for anything.

“Hey. What are you reading?”

“Clarke.” She swallows. “You should be asleep.”

“I’m not a baby, I don’t need naps.” She sits up with a small groan. “What you got there?”

Lexa feels her cheeks heat up, though she’s not quite sure why.

“I found this on the table,” she says, showing the piece of parchment to Clarke. Her love’s cheeks go red also.

“Oh. Did you…did you read it?”

Lexa doesn’t know how to lie when it comes to Clarke.

“Yes. But I’m not sure I understand it.”

Clarke shrugs, and the winces because of her wound. 

“It’s nothing. It’s…huh, stupid, really.”

Lexa sits down next to her, checks the dressings on her shoulder.

“Nothing you do could ever be stupid.”

Clarke smiles faintly up at her.

“It’s my…it’s my bucket list.”

Lexa frowns.

“Bucket list?”

“Yeah, it’s like…it’s a list of things you want to do before you die. Or ‘kick the bucket’ that’s why it’s called that. Like I said, it’s dumb.”

“You’re not dying,” is the only thing Lexa says, the only thing she gets from her words.

“I know,” Clarke reassures her at once. “It’s just a thing people do. And, you know…with what happened, I just go to thinking about it.”

Clarke sits back on the pillows, and Lexa covers her hand with her own.

“You wrote...you wanted to marry me.” She sounds in awe because she is.

Clarke wrote about the things she wishes to do before her death (which Lexa can barely think about let alone say out loud). And she wrote marrying her. And…having children. Travelling. Learning to swim. All things that Lexa could give her or do for her or teache her. 

Lexa looks up at her.

Clarke tucks her chin into her chest, in a way that she seldom does, on those few instances when she’s nervous or unsure.

“Well…I love you,” she says firmly. “And when I think about something I definitely want to do with my life…that’s be with you forever.” Her blue eyes are strong and beautiful and certain when they meet Lexa’s. “I want to be your wife, Lexa.” She points to her shoulder. “If there’s anything this has taught me is that life is too short, and I-”

She doesn’t finish, because Lexa is already kissing her. 


	2. my life's best part [au]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU, PG.  
> Towards the end of her life, Lexa is visited by a familiar face.

_"But I must admit I miss you terribly. The world is too quiet without you nearby._ "

  
.

  
.

  
.

  
“The doctors don’t know…she’s still…”

 Lexa can hear her children’s voices quite clearly through the thin white walls of the nursing home, but she has long since stopped giving them grief for treating her like a senile old woman, when Lexa is in fact, an old woman, more senile some days than on others.

 She leans back in her rocking chair, let’s the words wash over until they become the pleasant hum of the three children they raised. (She can feel Clarke so near these days, which is why she’s not afraid.) The world is not a fearsome place for Lexa. It long since stopped being a place of loneliness, she can hardly remember what it felt like to be alone for the first 21st years of her life. (She’s quadrupled that age now.)

 The world is not a fearsome place, and neither is this home she finds herself in, or this body.

 Her body ran and held and kissed and made love and gave birth and suffered and loved. She’s never been less scared. (And she can feel Clarke so near, so near.) Her body is killing her, too, these days, and Lexa doesn’t mind one bit.

 She rocks in her chair, her eyes a bit clouded while she looks out the window. It’s a shame the cataracts make the sun outside seem so very gloomy, she wouldn’t have minded one last good sunrise, but it is what it is. 

Lexa has seen many good sunrises in her life. 

By far her favorite was the sun rising off Clarke’s face, setting her hair alight and her eyes on fire. Lexa could live off that look, and she did, oh she did, for nearly fifty-seven years. 

So she’s not upset. She feels a slight chill in her bones, but her throat is too dry to ask for a blanket. She wouldn’t want to bother Jake, anyway, or Amy or Ahn. They raised their children so well, it was a wonder Lexa got them to leave her alone for a second at all.

 But she needed this. Needed this so badly.

 She can never see her with other people in the room.

 Her wife was beautiful, so, so beautiful, blond hair and blue eyes and that mole over her lip that Lexa always kissed twice before she left for work. Fifty-seven years together. Five years since she left, and left Lexa alone in turn, but she didn’t hold it against her.

 Fifty-seven years. Five years. And Clarke looks as beautiful as she did on their wedding day, standing on the corner of Lexa’s room in the nursing home.

 Lexa smiles, feels her wrinkles move into the shape, like it’s second nature.

 “Hey beautiful,” Clarke says, and Lexa closes her eyes, as two hot tears make their way down paper-thin skin.

 She’s so missed her voice.

 “You’ve been so brave.” 

Lexa owed it to their children. The diagnosis came too quick, and they knew from the get go that Lexa was without options. So, the nursing home. So, the pain management. So, the end. 

But she never thought it’d be so beautiful. 

“Are you really here?” Lexa has to ask, because Clarke is every dream she’s ever had, still is, and she wants to make sure she’s not dreaming.

 Clarke nods, walks closer. If Lexa was cold before, or ever, she can’t remember it.

 “I’m here to take you home,” Clarke says, or doesn’t say, her lips don’t move, but Lexa feels the words down to her bones.

 “And the kids?” 

“They’ll look after each other,” Clarke says. “We raised them well.”

 Clarke’s smile feels warmer than the sun, Lexa can see it more clearly than anything she’s seen in years. Clarke’s hand touches Lexa’s face, her fingertips brush her forehead and suddenly Lexa doesn’t feel the weight of the years.

 Lexa looks up into Clarke’s smiling face, and stands.

 The rocking chair stops.


	3. no fear of perfection [au]

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU, rated PG  
> Clarke has a hard time reading name tags -which doesn't exactly help her when she has a crush on her barista.

  _I’d love to draw those fingers._  

It’s the first thing that comes to mind as Clarke watches the barista prepare her drink, and she blames it entirely on how tired she is. Her sleep deprived brain isn’t wrong, either, in all it’s cringe-worthy glory. (What if she’d said that out loud? Clarke has been known to blurt things out after an all nighter.) But the girl…she does have lovely fingers. 

And a lovely everything else. It’s entirely possible she actually has three legs behind the counter, or her lower half is covered in scales like a lizard, but everything Clarke can see is long, silky brown hair, bright green eyes, full pink lips and this goofy, big smile she gave the last costumer, a tall, tattooed man she really hopes it’s not the boyfriend.

But Clarke is an artist currently doing a study of he human form, and so she focuses on the girl’s hands. 

She watches her handle the humongous espresso machine with ease, pulling levers Clarke has no clue what they’re supposed to do. (With a pang she misses her compact, practical Keurig machine, a gift from her mother and which gave its last breath last week -prompting Clarke to seek the nearest coffee shop.) 

(On a second thought, she’s not too sorry if it brought her here, where Green Eyed Cutie is finishing up a delicate foam flower on her cup.) 

Her hands are narrow and delicate and with freakishly long fingers, like a pianists. Or at least, Clarke thinks she could be a pianist. Do pianists normally have long fingers? Or do long-fingered people just gravitate toward the piano like tall people toward basketball? 

“Um, your coffee is ready.”  

Clarke looks up. The girl’s voice is cute, too. 

A quick look at her name tag lets her know the girl’s name is “Alex”. It suits her, maybe a little too common -Clarke went on a date with an Alexandra back in high school. She was nice.  

She pays, makes sure to tip her and that the girl notices she does before she leaves. 

“Thanks Alex!” 

She gives her a blinding smile before nearly slamming her forehead on the door. She manages to leave with most of her dignity intact. 

 

   

She hands in her drawings, gets an A. She passes her classes and stops needing so much caffeine to get through the day. 

But she keeps going back to the tiny coffee shop in the corner of 3rd (afternoons after 2, and never on the weekends) because it’s almost winter and she needs something warm, damn it. And she might have, sort of learned the girl’s schedule. 

(Her mom replaces her coffee machine as an early Christmas gift. Clarke still keeps going -and asks her wallet for forgiveness.)

 

   

“It’s really coming down out there, isn’t it?” 

“You have no idea. This bra isn’t waterproof.” She pretends not to notice when the girl looks at her shirt for a little while too long. 

 “Well, I…” She clears her throat. “I hope you get home safe.” 

“I’m Clarke, by the way.” 

She reaches over the counter to shake her hands. Maybe it’s just the coffee, but they’re so warm. 

  

 

“First snow of the year, huh?” 

“I love it. Gives me an excuse to get coffee more often, doesn’t it?” 

 

 

“I got caught by the storm.” She’s miserable, and wet, and it’s the first time she doesn’t actively flirt with Alex, looking forward to the sweet mercy of a hot beverage a lot more.

 

 

“Here.” She takes the carton cup quickly and takes a sip right away, then raises her eyebrows at the thick, silky hot chocolate she tastes, instead of her usual coffee order.

“On the house,” Alex says. “It’s the best thing to warm you up quickly, I promise. Family recipe.” 

“Thank you,” Clarke says, raising her cup to her before taking another sip. It’s hot, bordering on too hot, sweet and with bite at the end, just a hint of what she’s pretty sure it’s booze. It’s damn good chocolate. She’s a damn beautiful girl. For the first time, Clarke takes a seat. There’s only one empty chair left, and she has to do that awkward thing where she shares a table with a stranger who’s deep into his laptop, but it doesn’t matter. She sips her chocolate slowly until it’s cold, and even then, stays a few more minutes and finishes it. 

It’s suddenly not a bad afternoon at all. 

 

 

“Ready to try something new?” 

“Surprise me.”

  

 

“A dove out of foam? That’s new and fancy.” 

“Well, I’m good with my fingers.” 

 

 

Clarke comes to enjoy her coffee visits, and she’s never been shy, but she’s biding her time until she finally makes her move. And she will make a move, because she’s pretty sure Alex likes her, she remembers her order and puts extra foam on her lattes.  

It’s a little over a month since she first came here when she notices someone else manning the register other than Alex. It’s a small coffee shop, and usually not to crowded, so she usually prepares the coffee and handles the money all on her own, but a blonde woman stands there now, eyeing Clarke with a raised eyebrow. 

“Alex knows my order,” Clarke says.  

“Alex?” The woman looks back to Alex, then to Clarke, and sighs. “Oh, that’s freaking tragic.”  Clarke raises her eyebrow. She sneaks a look at Alex and her cheeks are red. “Look,” the cashier says, “her name is Lexa, but my cousin has a deadly ailment, she’s incapable of correcting cute girls, so...”

 Clarke’s face turns red and hot in a second flat.  

She recites her order and pays and takes the coffee from Lexa’s hands without looking up at her.

She hightails out of the shop with the single minded intention to never go back again, get to her apartment, and then hopefully die.

  

 

Clarke has been embarrassed before. She called her teacher ‘mom’ in the 8th grade, and then corrected herself by saying ’sorry, I meant mommy’. She wanted to move states back then too. How did she call the girl she was crushing on from afar the wrong name for a month? An entire month? They had flirty conversations here and there and Alex…Lexa, never corrected her.  

What if she was making fun of Clarke?  

Her whole chest feels warm and red with the thought that Lexa might have been laughing about Clarke’s little crush and flirting attempts. Then again, that doesn’t seem to be Lexa. Lexa…the name suits her, a lot more than ‘Alex’ did. It’s got to be short of Alexandra, so maybe it’s not all lost. Maybe Lexa didn’t correct her because she thought Clarke had somehow chosen her own little nickname for her. That could work, right? 

Maybe the blond girl at the cashier was just confused because it’s not what she usually goes for. That immediately lets Clarke breathe, because the past month was filled with the fluttery excitement of liking someone new that she hasn’t felt in months, even her art has improved with how much caffeine and good moods she’s been having, and she doesn’t want to lose that. Doesn’t want to lose the beginning of something, the chance, that possibility. Doesn’t want to stop seeing green eyes and drinking good chocolate, that’s still not as sweet as a kind smile.

 And all for an embarrassing mistake.  

Clarke faced her classroom and a week of relentless mocking back in 8th grade, like a champ. She can face Lexa again now.

  

 

She goes back to the coffee shop around 9, their closing time. She hopes Lexa is still there, knows she will be because the one time she showed up five minutes before closing time Lexa served her, and then walked her out while she closed. (Clarke had been so close to asking her out, right then and there. But then a car arrived to pick Lexa up and the words died on her throat.)

She catches sight of brown hair and a white beanie from across the street, and taking a deep breath, walks over.

Lexa has her back to her, closing the cafe’s door, and Clarke clears her throat. 

She still jumps. 

“It’s just me,” she says softly, and Lexa meets her eyes. Under the light of the street lamp posts, Lexa’s look almost black. 

“Hey,” Lexa says, tugging on the lock one last time. She turns around, Clarke shuffles, neither look at each other. It’s mortifying so Clarke decided to end their misery.

“Lexa, huh?” She asks, and gets rewarded with Lexa’s smile. 

“I…I’d be lying if I said I tried to correct you. Sorry.” 

Clarke shrugs. “Well, is it at least short for Alexandra? It’s gotta be short for Alexandra.”  

Lexa shakes her head. “My parents were minimalists. It’s just Lexa.” 

Clarke’s soul shrivels up with how hard she cringes. 

“I’m sorry,” she says, though Lexa -Lexa- is quick to wave it away. “And you’re too good of a barista too, you always remember my order.” 

“You did notice,” Lexa says softly, like it’s a revelation. 

“That you ask everyone for their order but me? Of course.” Clarke thinks she sees her blush, but it could be a trick of the light. She’s mortified, yes, but that isn’t about to stop her now. Turn on the charm, Griffin. “So, how could I ever repay you for this horrible mistake?” 

Lexa smiles a little, shrugs. Raises and eyebrow at Clarke in question -or perhaps in challenge. 

“I don’t know, Clarke.” 

Clarke plays along.

 “I know. Did you know I’m a bartender? I work nights at the Ark. How about, I make you a drink for a change?” 

Lexa thinks about it. “I don’t drink. Sorry.” 

Clarke would have deflated if it wasn’t for Lexa’s teasing smile. It’s okay, Clarke likes a challenge. 

“We sell some mean chili fries,” she insists, and Lexa pretends to consider it. “On the house,” Clarke adds, to sweeten the deal. “How about that, huh, Lexa?”

 Clarke likes the way her name rolls of her tongue.  

“Tomorrow night?” Lexa asks.

 “Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow night.”

 

  

1st date:  

(because chili fries at the Ark while Clarke tends the bar and they yell at each other over the music does not count)

 “I’m dyslexic. I honestly never tried to read your name tag after that first day and I feel so incredibly stupid now.”

 “You’re not stupid. You’re lovely.”

 “How come you never corrected me?”

 “I didn’t have time to do it the first time, and the second time I chickened out, and then I was just too embarrassed to.”

 “Not more embarrassed that me, I can promise you that.”   

“Good point.” Lexa walks at her pace, shoulder to shoulder just because it’s cold out now that winter is really kicking in. “By the way, the chili fries were really good, but not as good as mine. I make the chili from scratch, simmer it for hours.” 

“I thought you were a barista.” 

“I told you I was good with my fingers. Good with coffee, sure, but it extends to all food groups, really.”

 “And humble too.”

 “What can I say, I’m a class act.”

 Clarke laughs, gets the guts to link their arms together and quickly put her hand back in her pocket. 

 “I burn water,” she confesses, and Lexa laughs.

 “We’ll be just great, then,”  she says.

  

 

2nd date:

 Lexa tastes like coffee when they kiss. 

  

 

3rd date: 

Even if they didn’t start perfectly, Clarke has a feeling they'll be just fine. 


	4. delicate

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Canon verse, PG
> 
> Lexa has never felt like a child

Lexa never felt like a child.

She remembers marching through the capital square as a girl of eight, following the long black line of Titus’ robes. Always first in line, in front of her natblida brothers and sisters -Lexa was always the smallest. She remembers marching through the city, watching the people she’d be tasked to protect one day, if the spirit chose her.

Most of all, she watched the children.

Even as a young girl, she watched them, chancing Titus’ wrath and letting her eyes stray from whatever he chose to teach them that morning. The girls and boys around her age were always playing. It seemed ridiculous to Lexa, when there was so much to be practiced and to be learned, but they never seemed to be without toys in their hands or smiles on their faces.

The youngest had playthings fashioned out of scraps of fabric, human figurines and wads of cloth meant to resemble fluffy rabbits, sewed in black buttons as their bright eyes. Lexa’s hands, already toughened from her training, always hurting one way or another, ached to hold one of those toys.  
Next to a vendor stand, a boy and girl about her age play with a ceramic figurine wrapped in blankets. They rock it and shush it, pretend to feed it food that is truly mud. It takes Lexa a few minutes of staring to understand that it’s meant to be a baby, and the children its parents. Lexa…she doesn’t understand it.

She doesn’t remember her parents. Titus told her once she was brought to Polis after her second birthday, and Lexa doesn’t remember anything else. 

Sometimes, after training has made her back tight and aching, she curls up in her bed, and imagines a woman with flowing brown hair who comes over to hold her and tell her she loves her, and soothe her aches away. Lexa knows she’s making it up in her head, but Titus can’t see inside her head so she thinks it’s all right if she pretends, just for a small while.

 A maid inevitably comes to draw her a bath, and sometimes Lexa is tempted to ask her to stay, like they did when she was smaller and couldn’t do anything by herself.

But she’s not a baby anymore.

The girl -Podakru, by the markings on her face, their people are visiting Polis after years of fighting and Lexa has had to sit through two meetings already- holds the doll, swinging it around.

Lexa’s grasp tightens on her weapon. She’s just been trusted with her first blade, even earlier than some of the older natblidas, and she’s proud. She’s still confused. She would never dream of pretending to be a mother. It seems silly, and she belongs to her people, anyways, she can have nothing of her own. 

Lexa has never played with dolls.

“Attention!” She hears the swing of the stick before she feels it, stinging against her leg. Someone snickers behind her. “Leksa? Is today’s lesson not to your liking?”

She knows better than to answer. 

Titus turns to keep walking, and she doesn’t look around anymore. She’s worthy of her nightblood, she belongs to her people, and this is what they need of her. She doesn’t think about childish games again.

 

Coda

“I never played with dolls, Clarke.”

“You’re lucky she’s not a doll, then.”

Lexa peers down at the pink, squirmy thing. She’s not crying, so that’s good, and it’s the extent of what Lexa knows about babes. She’s always been fond of little ones, always enjoyed receiving their tiny gifts and handmade trinkets in the town square, but she can count on one hand the times she’s actually held a newborn in her arms. The occasional warrior who presented his child to her to bless, to wish them a long life. 

Not this. 

“She’s quite beautiful,” Lexa says, stalling. “And strong. She’ll make a fine warrior.”

“I’ll make sure to tell Octavia that,” Clarke says, and Lexa doesn’t need to look to know Clarke is amused.

Clarke is the babe’s godmother, and Lexa isn’t sure what sort of skykru tradition turns her into ‘auntie Lexa’ by proxy, makes it so she has to hold this baby at least once. 

“Come on, she won’t bite,” Clarke says, and takes the baby from it’s crib. She makes a little displeased sound, but Clarke is unfazed, and suddenly there’s a slight weight on Lexa’s arms. 

“She feels so fragile,” Lexa says, long ago used to her thoughts flowing out of her mouth whenever she’s with Clarke.

“She is,” Clarke says. “Not that fragile, though. You won’t break her.”

Lexa nods, awkwardly practice swinging the bundle -a tiny cry makes her stop right away.

“I don’t think she likes me.”

“Just relax. They can smell fear.”

She throws Clarke a look, but can't stay mad when Clarke presses a kiss on her cheek.

“You’re doing great. Plus, this will be good practice.”

Lexa stops breathing.

“Clarke.”

“I’m just saying. Maybe one day? You don’t have to answer anything right now.”

But she knows the glint in Clarke’s eyes, the want, the love, and she would never deny Clarke anything. And, she begins to understand, she doesn’t have to deny herself. She belongs to her people but her heart belongs to Clarke.

Maybe her life could belong to herself, too.

Somewhere in her minds eye there is a little girl with the weight of the world on her shoulders, who can’t understand why you’d want to play-pretend at all. She understands now, realizes it’s not about a game but about possibilities, one day, when you’re ready. She never thought to play like those children did because it was never a possibility for her at all. Why pretend to make cakes when she wouldn't be a baker, why swing around a doll when she'd never be a mother? Why spend time playing -if only to entertain herself- when she could train instead? But Clarke has obliterated those thoughts to smithereens, and these days Lexa feels as though there's nothing she can't do. She's already lived longer than she thought she would.

Logic is often so easy, but emotion takes her by surprise.

She never even thought -never expected...

Just like she didn’t expect Clarke.

“One day,” she tells Clarke, looking down upon the now sleeping baby.

The smiles that spreads across her face is one she’s beginning to get used with each day that passes, and it only grows as Clarke wraps her arms around her waist, rests her head on her shoulder.

“One day.”


	5. delinquent

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU, PG  
> Clarke picks the wrong -or the right- house to egg.

Your hands are sweating, your heart is pounding, your breath comes in short, quick puffs of air. It’s cold out, but you can barely feel the chill of the winter air with the amount of nerves that thrum through your body. Your blood is like electricity running through a power line.

The weight of the egg carton in your hand feels heavier by the second, and you begin having second thoughts. 

“Don’t chicken out now, Clarke.” Jasper’s voice buzzes in your ear, your earphone's wire tucked neatly inside your jacket. “You said you’d do it.”

That does it.

You’re Clarke Griffin, and you’ve never gone back on a dare before, and you couldn’t possibly face your friends and live with the stain to you reputation if you went back on your word. 

Plus, this is your last dare, and 50 bucks and a quarter bottle of rum (which Monty swiped from his uncle) are waiting for you at the end of the line. Plus you're starting high school in two weeks and you want stories to tell.

  
You sneak behind the car on the drive way, take a deep breath, and open the egg carton.

You breath in, and out. In. Out.

The egg feels like a stone in your hand when you take it out, heavier by the second.

You throw.

It’s almost exhilarating the way it smashes against the front steps of the green house, smearing the pavement with yellow and making the grey darker with each rivulet that runs down. Nerves make way for senseless adrenaline, and you pick up another, and throw it, and then another.

It reaches the wall of the house, the brightest house on the street and the one Jasper picked solely because it stood out.

You’re halfway through the egg carton, halfway through the dare, and blood is pounding so hard in your ears you fail to notice the screen door of the house opening as you pick up another egg and reach your arm back to throw.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

Your heart stops. 

The egg in your hand falls and smashes on the sidewalk, staining the side of your sneakers and your ankle but you barely feel it. 

You look up and meet the eyes of the police officer who called you out. The very tall, very large police officer who’s walking out of the house you were just throwing eggs at.

You want to run, you should be running, but you just helplessly stand there, holding a half-full carton of eggs in one hand, frozen.

You feel like passing out.

“I said what do you think you’re doing?” He walks a few steps, and you swallow.

Through the ringing in your ears you hear: “Run! Clarke! Run! What the fuck! Why isn’t she running? Why aren’t you running?! Clarke!”

“Do you know egging someone’s house is a criminal offense?”

You begin to fight through the layers of shock, and acknowledge it’s too late too run -you’re not that good of a runner, plus, he’s a cop, he’d catch up to you- and you’re truly and well fucked. 

“Well?” He asks again, and you think of something, anything you could say.

“I…I…” You will tears up to your eyes. “He cheated on me!” You exclaim, and then force yourself to sob like you haven’t since you were 12.

The officer steps back at your outburst.

You hear your friends wondering what the fuck you’re doing in your ear, and you don’t even know that yourself, but it seems to work. He’s taken aback, and you’re not getting arrested.

“Your…your…” You don’t even know if the guy has a son, so you gesture towards the house and pray he does. “ -cheated  -cheated on me!”

“I…what?” He drags his hand down his face, looks back to the house and across the street, his expression supremely uncomfortable and panicked. "Lexa?”

Oh fuck. Fuck. 

It’s over. Your fake crying stops immediately and you’re lucky he doesn’t notice because he’s turning back to the house. A girl about your age walks out. 

“This young lady here claims you…cheated on her?” He tells her. The girl raises an eyebrow, eyes you, and you’re inexplicably more embarrassed by the crocodile tears on your cheeks, that have surely ruined your makeup, than by the fact you got caught red-handed throwing eggs on her front porch.

“I caught her egging the house,” the officer tells her.

You look at the girl, count yourself done for.

Your beg her with your eyes when the man, who must be her father, turns around to face you, and she looks amused. But you don’t think she’ll go with it. You’re screwed. You can say goodbye to your summer internship on the city. Your mom will never let you go. You look down to your shoes. 

Stupid. So stupid, why did you even consider-

“It’s complicated,” the girl says, and you look up.

No fucking way.

“So you know her?” the cops asks, and the girl nods.

“Of course, this is, this is…”

“Clarke,” you say right away. “And she did cheat on me.”

The girl raises an eyebrow, almost a ‘don’t push it’, and you shut your mouth.

“Did not.” The girl comes down the stairs, wearing shorts despite the cold, a flannel shirt wrapped around her waist. You've never been happier to see flannel. “Look Pop, Clarke here just thought…I asked her out, but then she saw me with Costia and thought I was like double playing her or something.”

“Right.” The man doesn’t look convinced, but he doesn’t look like he’s a second away from cuffing you and reading you your Miranda rights either.  
The girl turns to you, and you get a good look at lovely green eyes and full lips.

“I thought I explained,” she says, and then widens her eyes at your silence, prompting you. 

“Uh, yeah.” Leave it yo you to be struck dumb by a girl in the least opportune moment. “I…I didn’t believe you.”

The cop rolls his eyes.

“Fix your business, please. And you,” he points to you, and suddenly you feel very, very small. “Clean this.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”

He waves it away, not before pointedly looking at the girl, and walks toward the cop car on the curb of the street, which you never really thought would belong to this particular house.

The cop car Jasper and Monty and Octavia are hiding behind.

“You guys, run.” You whisper, and the girl in front of you raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow again. You turn only to see them power walking away from the car like they didn’t just appear behind it.

“So?” the girl asks, and she’s no less intimidating than the cop, in a different way. “Care to explain that?”

“You just saved my life,” you tell her instead. 

“He wouldn’t have killed you,” she says. “Scared you a little, maybe. But Gus usually has a soft spot for…teenage delinquents.” She looks you up and down while she says it, and you feel your cheeks pink for reasons entirely separate from the weather. Her tone of voice removes any offense you might have taken at the words, and well, you kind of _were_ egging her house.

“I’m sorry,” you tell her. “It was just a stupid dare from my friends, I really should have said no.” You feel so young and stupid and ridiculous standing in front of her.

“That’s a shitty thing to do to someone’s house, you know?”

You swallow, feel very guilty out of a sudden. It’s a feeling you should have had hours ago, when your friends dared you to egg a house, and it seemed so much easier than eating a piece of chewing gum from the floor, which Jasper had done.

“I know. I’m sorry." You bite your lip. "Thank you for helping me. I’ll clean it up, I promise. I’ll get my asshole friends to help.”

“Well, you were the one doing the throwing so…”

“I’ll clean it by myself then.”

“Good.”

You look away from her stare.  
    
You shake your ankle out, finally feeling the cold from the fallen egg and the stickiness seeping into your sock. And you feel the shame of being thoroughly called out by someone your own age.

“I think I should have taken my chances with your dad,” you say, to fill the silence. The girl smiles like it pleases her to hear that, and you try not to smile, try to tamp down your urge to flirt. It’s the worst situation. You really shouldn’t. “I never got your name,” you ask her anyway, because you’re Clarke Griffin, and you have a reputation to uphold. You do know her name, her dad called her Lexa, but she doesn’t know that.

She’s surprised, eyes you like you have the nerve- and you do, you really do, especially when it comes to beautiful girls.

“I’ll give it to you once my walls are clean,” the girl -Lexa- says, fishing a pen out of her back pocket and reaching for the egg carton you’re still dumbly holding in your hand. She writes something on the side, and hands it back to you before making her way down her front yard and onto a bicycle leaning against a light pole.

You’re shaken out of watching her climb onto it by Jasper’s voice in your ear.

“Clarke, you still alive?”

“Not thanks to you,” you growl, watching the girl ride down the street and out of sight.

You look down at the carton in your hand, and read the black ink scribbled on the side.

_**Better be spotless, delinquent.** _

And a phone number written beneath it in neat, precise handwriting.


	6. an itch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AU. Clarke and Lexa still have growing up to do.

“Can you for one second stop acting like an emotionally stunted child?” The words are out of Clarke’s mouth before she can help it, and Lexa looks as though she’s been slapped. 

Clarke swallows.

“I didn’t mean-”

But Lexa is out the door.

The door slams into the wall, denting the already abused drywall because they haven't gotten the door stop they said they would. It slams closed a moment later.

Clarke sinks down on the couch.

The silence is almost loud once her girlfriend is gone, so painfully overbearing as it makes Clarke’s ears ring.

They never used to fight.

Clarke attributed it to them graduating college, because moving was always going to be stressful, and new jobs were always going to cause tension to slip through the cracks of their apartment walls. (Actual cracks, the walls need fixing, and Clarke promised Lexa she’d call the tenant but she got busy with a commission and forgot.)

She’s not used to it.

She’s used to Lexa being soft and pliant and sweet after a day of acing her exams, or Lexa being grumpy and focused as she studies. She’s not used to Lexa waking up early and waking her up with the sound of the shower. (They lived together that last year, but there were communal bathrooms in the dorms.) She’s not used to lawyer Lexa, getting ready and reciting things Clarke can’t hope to understand for herself while she has her coffee, while she ignores Clarke, while she goes off to work, stern and unmovable, and then returns tired and still refuses a massage.

It’s been a month of their new lives, and Clarke wants to scream.

She hasn’t changed, she doesn’t think. She still has Raven and Octavia and Wells over all the time, she still paints and wants to have sex. (Another thing that’s changed in their lives.)

She remembers every buzzfeed article she ever read about people changing, people outgrowing each other, and she wonders if Lexa has outgrown her.

Clarke rakes her fingers through her hair.

She accused Lexa of being an emotionally stunted child, but she’s the one who feels like a kid. Because maybe Lexa isn’t at fault here, maybe Lexa is just being an adult and it’s Clarke the one who can’t seem to grasp they’re not in college anymore. The sound of the door opening shakes her out of her thoughts.

“Lexa, I’m sorry-”

She gets up from the lumpy couch (what they could afford) and stares at her girlfriend’s tear stained face.

Lexa looks like she’s been crying, and it breaks Clarke in half.

“I know I’ve been…neglecting you,” Lexa starts, but Clarke interrupts her.

“No, I’ve been immature, and I’m sorry-”

“No, I…” Lexa shakes her head, and offers Clarke a single rose. Clarke hadn’t even noticed she was hiding her arm behind her back.

She takes it.

“I’ve been ignoring you,” Lexa says, taking a step forward. Clarke stands her ground. “I’ve been busy and overwhelmed and I think I…maybe I forgot that we’re in this together.”

Clarke turns around to put the rose down, doesn’t even have time to notice Lexa’s expression fall before she launches her arms around her. It feels like coming home.

Lexa holds her back, tight.

“I’m sorry, too,” she says into Lexa’s shoulder. “I’ve been wanting us to stay the same, and we can’t. School is over, and this is the real world, and I get…I get that we’re not going to be exactly the same people.”

Lexa pulls away, looks at her, and Clarke falls for those green eyes all over again. 

“But I always love you,” she says finally, through the lump that’s taken up residence in her throat.

“I always love you,” Lexa whispers back, before pressing a kiss to Clarke’s lips.

Clarke kisses her back, before sinking into her embrace and just holding her, the smell of paper and starch enveloping her, as opposed to that perfume she wore in college, that finally ran out last week.

They’re different, but they’re not.

And maybe they’ll fight some more, when Lexa finds out Clarke didn’t call the tenant, and when Clarke realizes Lexa didn’t tell her she’d be working late, but that love doesn’t change.

"Where did you even get that rose?" Clarke asks. Lexa left without her wallet (and _that_ is still quite empty).

"Florist down the street."

"Did you steal it?"

Lexa doesn't answer.

(Clarke learns they both have growing up to do, but she also knows they can do it together.)


End file.
